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STATE OF ILLINOIS

DEPARTMENT OF REGISTRATION
AND EDUCATION

Bulletin of the Immigrants Commission No. 2

The Immigrant

AND

Coal Mining Communities
of Illinois

GRACE ABBOTT
Executive Secretary, Immigrants Commission

SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS

1920

STATE OF ILLINOIS

DEPARTMENT OF REGISTRATION
AND EDUCATION

Bulletin of the Immigrants Commission No. 2

The Immigrant

AND

Coal Mining Communities
of Illinois

GRACE ABBOTT
Executive Secretary, Immigrants Commission

SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS

1920

(43926 — 1M)

ILLINOIS PRINTING CO., DANVILL1, ILL.
•2

STATE OF ILLINOIS

DEPARTMENT OF REGISTRATION AND EDUCATION
FRANCIS W. SIIEPARDSON, DIRECTOR, Springfield

THE I MM Hi HANTS' COMMISSION

FRANCIS W. SIIKI-AKDSON, CHAIRMAN, Springfield

ABEL DAVIS, Chicago

CHARLES F. HARDING, Chicago

MRS. HARLAN WARD CPOLEY, Chicago

JOHN W. FORNOF, Streator

(IRACB ABBOTT, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY,
538 So. Dearborn St., Chicago, Illinois

Amendment to the Civil Administrative Code Approved June
10, 1919.

"In the Department of Registration and Education :

The Immigrants' Commission composed of five members, one of
whom shall bo the Director, sh-il' :

(1) Make a survey of the immigrant, alien born and foreign-
speaking people of the State, and of their distribution, conditions of
employment, and standards of housing and living.

(2) Examine into their economic, financial, and legal customs,
their provisions for insurance and other prudential arrangements,
their social organization and their educational needs; keeping in
friendly and sympathetic touch with alien groups and co-operating
with state and local officials and with immigrant and related au-
thorities of other states and of the United States."

Address all communications to

The Executive Secretary,

Immigrants' Commission,

538 So. Dearborn St.,

•.

Chicago, Illinois.

The family of a Hungarian miner.

WHY THE STUDY WAS MADE1

The Immigrants' Commission is directed by statute to investi-
gate the "conditions of employment and standards of housing and
living," "social organizations," and "educational needs" of the
foreign born in the state. The first communities in which such
investigations were undertaken by the Commission were four coal-
mining counties representative of the north, central, and southern
fields of Illinois. There were several reasons for this choice.
Although in the value of the products, agriculture and manufactur-
ing, are more important than mining in Illinois, still in 1910 the
State became the second largest coal-producing state in the United
States. Pennsylvania, of course, ranked first. Since then Illinois
has been surpassed only by West Virginia. These three states,
Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Illinois furnish two-thirds of the
bituminous coal of the country ; roughly, one-half of this comes from
Pennsylvania and one-fourth each from Illinois and from West
Virginia.

CHANGES IN ILLINOIS MINING COMMUNITIES

There have been important racial changes in the history of min-
ing in Illinois. The pioneer workers were American, English, Irish,
Scotch, Welsh, German, and a few French and English Canadian.
In 1890 only 7 per cent of the employees in the mines and quarries
of Illinois were from non-English speaking countries other than
Germany and the Scandinavian states. By 1899 about 25 per cent
were from France, Italy, Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Belgium.
With the opening of new fields from 1902 to 1907, and the consequent
extraordinary development of coal mining in the Middle West, the
number of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe in these
fields increased. This was especially true of Illinois. In some of
mining towns the recent immigrants displaced the older immigrants,
but in many places the coming of the Italian, Lithuanian, and Rus-
sian was coincident with the opening of the new mines. At present
there are mining communities in Illinois in which practically the
entire population are recent immigrants from southern and eastern

1 The investigation on which this text is based was done in the main by Miss Sybil Loughead.

Europe. Poor roads and lack of other transportation facilities have
resulted in an isolation of some of these communities not found in
any of the industrial towns of the state.

INDUSTRIAL AND SOCIAL IMPORTANCE OF COAL MINING

The war and the events since the war have brought to the people
of every country a new sense of the dependence of our economic life
and of our personal comfort upon the uninterrupted production of
coal. The increased cost of living as well as the desire for a better
standard of living has resulted in world-wide unrest among coal
miners.

With the price controlled by the cost of production in the least
productive mines, we are faced with the dilemma of impossibly low
standards in many mines or with unjustifiably high profits and high
prices in the more productive mines.

The shortage of supply and the high prices have brought discon-
tent on the part of the public and the demand is general that mine
operators and miners should consider the interest of the public in
any policy adopted. This conflict of feeling has developed in Illinois
as well as in other states and other nations. Radical solutions have
been suggested from various quarters. The alien character of the
population, while probably in no case the cause, is in many of these
towns an added complication in the discussions. It was therefore
believed that the basic facts about the population, housing, educa-
tional opportunities, and general social conditions of the immigrant
population in these mining towns of Illinois should be known.

HISTORY OF RACIAL CHANGES

The United States census does not give the nationality figures
for smaller communities nor for coal miners as distinct from those
employed in other mines and in quarries. The census taken by the
State Mining Board in 1899 is the latest official one showing nation-
ality in detail. A partial return from a questionnaire sent out in
1918 by the Coal Operators' Association to determine the number of
the foreign born employed in the bituminous mines in Illinois shows
the English to be the largest group; the Italians, Austro-Hungari-
ans, Germans, Russians, Poles, and French follow in the order
indicated.

The Italians were among the first of the recent immigrants to
go into mining. As early as 1899 they were the largest foreign
group — with the exception of the Germans — and there probably are
now twice as many Italians as there are of any other one nationality
working in the coal mines in Illinois. They had a part in the
development of the northern mines as well as in the more recently
opened southern ones. The Poles were next in importance to the
Italians in 1899 ; but since that date they have not been entering the
mines in great numbers, and, more than the other nationalities, they
have left for industrial employment in cities and towns, so that in
the mining communities they are at present surpassed in numbers
by the Lithuanians as well as by the Italians.

The Lithuanians have come chiefly since 1900 and are therefore
more numerous in the central and southern fields than in the north-
ern section. They already outnumber the Italians in Springfield
and in many places in the southern part of the state. The Slovaks,
Slovenians, Croatians, and Serbians are also recent comers to these
same districts. While there are a few in almost every community,
and their total numbers are not large, they form a large part of the
population in individual places. Thus Zeigler has a large per cent
of Croatians and Servians ; Thayer is largely Slovak ; Divernon
chiefly Magyar; while Springfield and Auburn have good-sized
colonies of Slovenians and French respectively.

FOUR COUNTIES SELECTED AS BASIS OF THE STUDY

As a basis of the Commission's study, schedules were taken by
agents of the Commission in 26 towns and camps in Williamson,
Franklin, Bureau and Sangamon Counties. Williamson and Frank-
lin Counties are in the newer fields in the extreme southern part of
the state. They are the two most important coal-mining counties
in Illinois. For the past five years about one-fourth of the coal
produced and of the men employed in the mines of the State have
been in these two counties. Williamson County had at least one
mine thirty-seven years ago, but it produced little coal until after
1900. Since that date the mines have developed so rapidly that
from 1907 to 1910, and again from 1912 to 1914, it mined more coal

than any county in the State; since 1914 it has been second only to
Franklin County in coal production.1

In 1900 there were 1,440 men working in the mines of William-
son County; in 1910 there were 7,760. It now has 40 commercial
mines employing 10,132 men and in addition 9 small mines supply-
ing local trade and employing 93 more men — making a total of
10,225 miners.2

The nationality census of coal miners taken by the Illinois Min-
ing Board in 1899 showed 1,427 miners in Williamson County, of
whom 1,178 or 83 per cent were American. Of the remainder 138
were Italian, 90 British, 15 German, 5 Russian, and 1 French.3 Of
3,712 foreign-born white persons in the county in 1910, 1,607 were
from Italy, 573 from Russia, 144 from Austria and 17 from
Hungary.4 Since then the number of foreign born has
steadily grown as the mines have developed. The Italians
still constitute the majority of the foreign born, followed in impor-
tance by the Lithuanians. Many of the Poles have left for industrial
cities and towns, and fewer have come in, so that they are far out-
numbered by the Italians and Lithuanians. Practically all the other
nationalities of southeastern Europe are represented in small groups.

Franklin County's population history is very much like that of
Williamson County, except that its growth has been more rapid;
its towns are newer and its population less settled. Because of this
rapid growth it has attracted more men whose families are in
Europe, more workers without ties of any kind ; and there is in
consequence less permanency and more movement both in and out of
Franklin than Williamson County.

Like Williamson County it also has no factories and is of even
less importance in agriculture. Unlike Williamson County it had
no mines in the early days and had not as many as one hundred

•Thirty-eighth Annual Coal Report of Illinois, 1919, table 35, p. 91.
»/b<d., p. 264.

Eighteenth Annual Coal Report of Illinois, 1899, table 53, p. 74.
thirteenth Census of the U. S., 1910. Abstract with supplement for Illinois,
p. 634.

men in the mines before 1900.1 The greatest dvelopnient of its
mines has come since 1910. Betwen 1907 and 1915 Franklin County
passd from eighteenth to its present position as the most important
mining county in the State. It now employs the most miners and
produces the most coal and has the five largest mines in the State.2
It has apparently not yet reached its maximum production. A new
mine was opened in the summer of 1920, for which 800 miners were
needed, and many of the other mines are still continuing to increase
their production. In 1900 the foreign born constituted only 0.8 per
cent of the population of Franklin County and in 1910, 6.7 per cent.
Unlike Williamson County the Italians do not constitute a majority
of the foreign born. In 1910, out of a total of 1,731 foreign born,
489 were from Italy, 456 from Russia, 233 from Austria, and 29
from Hungary. Although the total numbers have increased, the
relative importance of the various national groups remains about
the same. A few of the communities are largely Italian, but in most
of them there is a preponderance of Lithuanians, Poles, Slovaks,
and Southern Slavs.

Sangamon and Bureau, also mining counties with a large per
cent of the miners from southern and eastern Europe, present strik-
ing contrasts with Williamson and Franklin Counties. Sangamon
County, the third largest coal-producing county in the state, has had
important mines since 1882, and its growth since that date has been
slow and steady. It is an important and rich agricultural district
and many of the settlements have developed from villages of retired
farmers. Its villages are attractive in appearance, compared to
many of the raw camps in Williamson and Franklin Counties.

The majority of the miners of Sangamon County were English
speaking in 1900. There were only 116 Poles, 69 Italians, and a few
Lithuanians, Russians, and Austrians among a total of 2,500
miners. In 1900 the number of foreign born constituted 11.5 per
cent and in 1910 13 per cent of the population of the County. This
increase was almost entirely an increase in the numbers from
southern and eastern Europe — particularly Lithuanians — who were
employed in the mines.

1Franklin County had so few minors In '1899 that it was not included in the
nationality census made by the Mining Board in that year.

Thirty-eighth Annual Coal lleport of Illinois Department of Mines and Minerals,
1919, table 35.

Coal production is declining in Bureau County, and instead of
the problems that come with mushroom towns, it has those of the
all but deserted village. In many of the towns there is discontent
among those who wish to leave for more profitable fields of em-
ployment and are prevented from going because they own property
which thev cannot sell.

No housing shortage hore. A row of 20 houses in
Cherry, only 2 of which wore occupied in August,
1320.

The main road to the outside
world.

The Company store for three small
camps, composed of about 200 company
houses, lu addition to the store there
are a pool room, a chapel, and a post-
office.

The beginnings of a new camp.

Bureau County is, however, representative of the older coal
fields whose mines have been largely developed by foreign labor. As
early as 1900, 21.6 per cent of its population was foreign born and
by 1910 the foreign born formed 23 per cent of its total population.
The four main groups were Swedish, German, Italian, and Russian
—the last two being numerically much the more important. The
mines are in the southeastern part of the county, and here the

foreign born have constituted a larger per cent of the population
than in the county as a whole. For example, in Spring Valley only
8 per cent were native born of native parentage, and 42 per cent
were of foreign birth.

Exclusive of the Lithuanians and Poles in Spring Valley the
miners of Bureau County are now almost entirely Italian, with a
few Slovaks and Belgians, but practically no Croatians, Serbians,
Magyars, and others who are to be found in the southern and
central field.

The original workers in these mines were said to be English-
speaking men who came from the Braidwood field, just south of
Bureau County, which gave out just as the Bureau County
mines were being opened. The non-English speaking foreign born
soon began to come. At first there was opposition to them on the
part of the English-speaking miners and many of the latter left. By
1899 as many as 58 per cent of those reporting their nationality
were from eastern and southern Europe. The Italians were among
the first to come. The Coal Report of 1899 shows that even then
780 out of a total of 3,071 miners in the county were Italians.3 A
partial census taken by an Italian priest in Spring Valley in 1911
showed that at that time many of the Italian families had lived
there twenty to twenty-five years and that there were some second
and even third-generation Italians in the community.

The Poles were also early comers to Bureau County. As early
as 1892 there were sufficient to support a church in Spring Valley.
Their numbers have decreased since that date, but the second and
third generation of the original Polish settlers still live in Bureau
County.

The Lithuanians did not begin to come until later. The 1899
State Coal Report showed only 42 miners from Russia.3 By 1910
immigrants from Russia constituted approximately one-seventh of
the total number of foreign born in the county. The Polish and the
Italians have lived in the district so long that they mingle with the
American population. In contrast, the Lithuanians are said to be
very clannish because they live together around their church. There
have been and still are some Belgian and French and a few Slovak
workers in the mines of Bureau County.

•Eighteenth Annual Coal Report of Illinois, 1899. Table 53, p. 73.

NUMBER AND NATIONALITY OF INDIVIDUALS FROM
WHOM INFORMATION WAS SECURED

In the course of the Commission's investigation schedules were
obtiained in eleven towns and camps in Williamson County. This
was practically every mining community which had a considerable
foreign-born population. In Franklin, Bureau, and Sangamon
Counties representative settlements were visited — fifteen altogether.
An effort was made to secure schedules from families from southern
and eastern Europe, as it is believed that they represent not only the
immigration of the recent past but of the next ten years to come.
There was no selection of individuals from whom schedules were
taken. A house-to-house canvass was made in the district selected.
Altogether 556 schedules were secured which covered 556 foreign-
born men, 497 foreign-born women, and 1,642 children. The nation-
ality of these men and women is given in the following table :

NATIONALITY OF MEN AND WOMEN IN ILLINOIS MINING TOWNS FROM WHOM
SCHEDULES WERE SECURED

NATIONALITY

Total

Men

Women

Italian

473

249

224

North Italian

341

181

160

South Italian

112

Not specified

Lithuanian

261

139

122

Polish

140

Czppho-Slnyalf

Jugo-Slav ...

Magyar

Ruthenian and Ukrainian

French and Belgian

All others

Total

1,053

556

497

PREVIOUS OCCUPATIONS OF THE IMMIGRANT MINERS

OF ILLINOIS

Immigration from eastern Europe has been in the main a
peasant migration, so that it is not surprising to find that in the
mines, as in the factories, most of the men were farm laborers or
farmers before they came to the United States. The experience of
380 of the 556 men from whom schedules were secured had been lim-
ited to farming before they emigratd. Only 43 had worked in the
mines in Europe. Of this number there was an interesting group of 14

Lithuanians who had first gone from the farms of Lithuania to the
coal mines in the vicinity of Glasgow, Scotland, and from there
had come to the United States; there were also 6 Sicilians, all of
whom had worked in the sulphur mines in Villa Rosa, in Sicily;1
there were 5 French miners who had worked in the coal mines of
France before they emigrated; and, indicative of the movement of
Italians to France and Germany, there were 3 North Italians who
had previously worked in both French and German mines.

A very large per cent of all immigrants coming to the United
States are destined to friends or relatives already here ; and instead
of attempting to begin the American experiment unaided or unad-
vised, they rely upon the advice or help of relatives or countrymen.
The knowledge of employment opportunities that the friends or
relatives have is usually confined to their own immediate environ-
ment. This explains the fact that 425 of the 556 men from whom
Schedules were secured had never worked at anything but mining in
the United States : it also explains why those immigrants who were
skilled workers in a trade for which there was no market in the
particular community to which this tie of relationship or friendship
led them never followed their trade here. In the course of the
schedule-taking men were found working in the mines who had been
millers, carpenters, bricklayers, shoemakers, tinners, blacksmiths,
and clerks in their European homes. A few of them preferred
mining to their old trades, but most of them had gone into the mines
because they were in a mining district and they took it for granted
that they could not find work at their trade. Most of them had
come to a camp or a town which had grown up around a mine, and
unless it was on the edge of an industrial town, mining was at least
the easiest choice.

Over and over again those who had been farmers or farm labor-
ers at home said that they worked in the mines because it was the
best-paying job they could get when they came; some of them said
they preferred farm work, but "it takes too much money to be a
farmer here" and farm hands are not so well paid as miners.

'This could probably not be counted as experience which in any way qualified for
coal mining here. The peasants of Villa Rosa not only get out the sulphur and haul It
from the mines, but they sometimes grind it in a primitive way in their homes during
the winter.

14
LIVING CONDITIONS

HOUSING

In Illinois the history of a mining settlement usually begins
with the driving of the shaft and the building of a number of
shacks by the mining company. Company ownership of the houses,
tihe store, and the other buildings of the town was formerly more
common than at present. But there are still camps entirely owned
by the company, and others in which the company has adopted the
policy of selling the houses to the miners but still owns a consider-
able part of the town.

If the mine happens to be near a country village, farming
center, or industrial town its development is influenced by the
housing and other standards of the village or town. But more often
it is called a "camp," is remote, and isolated ; and ugliness, incon-
venience, and even real hardships are the rule.

The mining towns and camps are painfully alike in appearance.
The four or five-room box-like houses are built in rows, elevated
from the ground on posts, without any cellar or foundation. Some-
times all the houses in a camp have front porches; sometimes
porches have been provided only for the new houses ; in some of the
towns shingling has been used ; and in some few the drab-gray paint
which is almost universal has given place to green or some other
color. There are frequently no trees or gardens of any sort.

For example, Bush-Hurst is a combination of two distinct set-
tlements which are about a mile apart. Hurst is a comfortable
village, built around a town square, in which not only miners but
retired farmers live. With the exception of one Croatian and five
Italian families the people in Hurst are Americans, and most of
them own their own homes. Bush, on the other hand, is a company-
owned, immigrant settlement of about two hundred houses scattered
in three camps. The first houses were of the ugliest box type, the
next ones to be built had porches, and for those now building
stained shingles instead of clapboards are being used.

Clifford, near Herrin, in Williamson County, is another com-
pany-owned town. Here there are 216 houses of three and four
rooms, all looking very much alike and painted slate colored. Each-
house had an outside toilet, which the company was supposed to

clean once a month, but many of them were offensively dirty, and
the people complained they had not been cleaned in three months.

Zeigler, the first mining settlement in Franklin County, was
started as a company town seven years ago. It now has from 3,000
to 3,500 people, about 60 per cent of whom are foreign born. Of
these approximately 400 are Croatian, 100 Montenegrin, Bulgarian,
Polish, and Lithuanian, respectively, and smaller numbers are
Slovak and Italian. For the past two years the company has been
selling the houses. It still has about 100 houses and 4 so-called
"flats," which it owns and rents to the miners. These flats are
barrack-like buildings, some longer than others. At the time of the

One of four "Company Flats" in Zeigler. These are barrack-like buildings varying
in length. One bouses 6, one 16, and another 30 foreign-born families. The picture
was taken the day after clean-up day.

investigation one housed 6, one 8, one 16, and another 30 families
under one roof. The toilets are all outside privies, supposedly
cleaned every month by the company, but last summer they were so
dirty that the Commission's investigators reported the odor in the
rear of the flat buildings to be almost unbearable. In the seven
years in which the camp has been in existence, no attempt had been
made to clean up or remove the rubbish until in May, 1920, a
clean-up day was held, at which time the mine closed and all the
business stopped while a beginning was made in the removal of
rubbish and filth.

NUMBER OF PERSONS IN HOUSEHOLDS FOR WHICH SCHEDULES WERE SECURED WITH
SPECIFIED NUMBER OF ROOMS

Number

r\t

NUMBER OF ROOMS

Total

fjl

Persons

8 or more

No Re port

Number
Households

121

No re port.

Total...

268

539

In some of the towns there are not enough houses to take care
of the workers, and in most of them there is not sufficient variety to
care properly for the families of different sizes and tastes. In
Williamson and Franklin counties 185 out of the 310 families
scheduled were living in four-room houses — 75 families lived in
fewer and only 49 in more than four rooms.

In Sangamon County 44 of the 128 families interviewed lived in
four-room houses, while 34 had fewer and 44 had more than that
number of rooms. In Bureau County housing conditions were
better. There, out of 115 families for whom schedules were secured,
39 families lived in four-room houses,* 3 in fewer, and 68 in more
than that number. In 80 of the homes visited in the four counties
in the course of the inquiry there were two or more persons per
room ; in 7 the rate was three or more persons per room.

THE BOARDER IN THE IMMIGRANT FAMILY

As in the immigrant neighborhood of a city the boarder is
found in the mining towns, and more frequently in the mining
camps. The reasons are the same in each case. There are large
numbers of single men, or men whose families are in Europe, and
there is seldom any plan made for housing them. There are more of
these single men in the newer camps, and sometimes in these

one finds bachelor houses where the single men live together in non-
family groups. But some of the single men must always find
accomodations with families. They are taken in sometimes out of
a kindly appreciation of this fact, and sometimes the wife does it to
supplement the family income. In Bureau County, where wages are
lower but there are fewer single men and more houses, only 12 per
cent of the families covered by the Commission's investigation had
boarders, and three-fourths of these had only one. In Sangamon
County 21 per cent of the families had boarders — one-half of these
had only one and one-fourth only two. In Williamson and Franklin
counties 21 per cent had boarders, and more than half of these had
more than one man living with the family. This practice of keeping
boarders is not confined to any one nationality. Thus in the
southern counties 24 per cent of the Lithuanians, 23 per cent of the
South Italians, 22 per cent of the Polish, and 21 per cent of the
North Italian families covered in the investigation had boarders.
In one six-room house a Ruthenian family of four had eight board-
ers; another, in which there was only one child, had ten boarders.
One Lithuanian family had three children and six boarders — eleven
people in a six-room house. As in the industrial neighborhoods of
the city, the practice of taking boarders exposes the family to the
generally bad physical effects of overcrowding and to the even more
serious social consequences which result from lack of privacy and a
generally demoralized family life.

THE WATER SUPPLY.

None of the houses visited in the course of this study had water
inside the house. In Williamson and Franklin counties securing
any water at all, to say nothing of pure water, was often quite a
problem. The water is frequently piped from the mines or river
and is often not fit to drink. Cisterns, sometimes very dirty, are
relied upon for drinking water in many of the camps. In one
company-owned camp one well was used by 20 families, another by
15, another by 14, and another by 10 families. In another camp
water is brought from the mines, and one faucet serves several
families. It is, however, not considered good for drinking purposes,
and rain water caught from the roofs is often used. In Zeigler
there is usually a faucet between two houses, but the water is not
only not good but gives out entirely at times. This the women in
other towns complained of also and explained that when a dry
season comes they "have to get water wherever they can."

This carrying water from a distance and having an insufficient
supply adds to the women's work, and it must also inevitably lower
family standards of cleanliness.

These conditions may seem like temporary hardships which
will soon be overcome. It should, however, be remembered that
families were found who had lived in camps like these for ten or
fourteen years, had come from similar or frequently worse condi-
tions in Scotland, Pennsylvania, or West Virginia. These are the
only homes many of the children are ever to know unless, as many
of them in the past have done, they leave the camp for the city.

The problem of how to insure decent, comfortable homes for the
miners is not easily solved. Any plan which looks beyond mere
negative action, the prohibition of what is extremely bad, is much
more difficult to work out for a mining than for an industrial town.
The life of the mining town is more precarious, so that conditions
approximating those of the construction camp are tolerated. While
an individual mine may be operated only a short time, the miners
move on to another place so that the conditions under which they
live are by no means temporary. Whether the houses are company
owned, built by a real estate company, or owned by the workers,
the uncertainty as to the continuance of the mine affects the char-
acter of the building of both the homes and the town improvements.
Almost no experiments have been made in the United States in
state or municipal housing or in co-partnership ownership. It is
hardly to be expected that, although so greatly needed, the first
experiments will be made in communities in which conditions are
so little stabilized as in the mining towns. Still the Miners' Union
has led the way in consumers' co-operation, and it may be that some
plan can be worked out for a .combination company and union
ownership which will eliminate the objections to company -owned
houses and speculative building, and will at the same time make a
much more just distribution of the losses if the operation of the
mine is abandoned than under any plan by which the men own their
own homes. Certainly the subject is of such importance that it
deserves the most serious consideration by the State as well as by
those immediately concerned.

At any rate an adequate and well-enforced State housing law
would eliminate many of the most menacing of the present condi-
tions. Experience has shown that, while such laws are easy to pass,

they frequently go unenforced. This has been due largely to the
fact that throughout the United States we rely almost wholly upon
local agencies for the enforcement of such laws when they are
passed. It is believed that the conditions already described make it

In this cainp in Williamson County there are 210 company-owned houses.

Old style colorless company houses in another Williamson County Camp. The
newer houses have porches and are painted.

clear that in all the camps and many of the smaller towns this
would mean no enforcement. Illinois needs State enforced housing
standards below which no community can fall but wh»ch any com-
munity may raise.

ILLITERACY AMONG THE MINERS AND THE EDUCA-
TIONAL OPPORTUNITIES OF THE MINING TOWNS.

Attempts to show that a knowledge of English could be made
a test of loyalty to American ideals or of the moral worth of the
individual have always failed. So also have attempts to promote a
love of the United States by disparaging the cultural, spiritual, or
economic contributions of the non-English speaking nationalities.
In determining the per cent in the Illinois mining towns who have
not learned to read, write, or speak English, or have not become
citizens, the Commission has attempted to do neither of the above.
It has, however, assumed that for participation in the life of the
community a knowledge of English is necessary. It is important,
therefore, to both the individual and the community that it be
within the range of reasonable possibility for all those who reside in
the United States to learn English and become acquainted with
current community problems and their historical setting. The
important fact which emerged from this study was not so much the
numbers who are still separated from us by language barriers but
the almost complete lack of provision which had been made for the
removal of that barrier.

It may be safely assumed that all foreign-born residents would
like to know English. This desire is weakened by many facts. Our
language must be learned by these men and women during the
leisure hours that come after a long working day. This is the most
important reason why the desire to learn English remains for many
a mere desire. After a miner has acquired the vocabulary of his
work more English is of little economic value to him, as most of
the foreign born in the mining towns remain miners or miners'
helpers. To become licensed miners they must wrork two years at
the face of the mine and take an examination which is given in
English. This examination is, however, a technical one and a
knowledge of the working terms, together with the practical experi-
ence they have had, is said to enable them to pass it without
general English vocabulary.

The men then do not need to know English either to hold a job
or to get the first promotion. But, although not an economic neces-
sity, they realize the value of a knowledge of the language of the
country. They know they are handicapped at the union meetings,
which are conducted in English; they know how difficult travel is

for them and how shut off they are from Americans because they do
not speak our language. Even those who do not expect to remain in
the United States would be glad to return with a knowledge of
English. Despite the seeming acquiescence in their isolation, it
may be assumed that all of them desire American contacts,
and although it is the cause of many a heartache, are proud of their
Americanized children. To what extent they are offered an oppor-
tunity to share in what is available for their children is the ques-
tion of real importance.

In the 26 mining towns and cities covered in the investigation
only four offered classes of any kind for adults last year. In three
of these communities, evening classes were held in the school build-
ing and taught by day-school teachers, but the expenses of the
classes were met out of a fee charged those who attended. These
were men who were being coached for their naturalization examina-
tions. In the fourth place, Springfield, there has been a regular
evening school; since its legality1 was questioned, the school has
been kept open by contributions mainly from the Daughters of the
American Kevolution.

It is not surprising therefore to find, as the following table
shows, that only 63 out of 556 men and 16 out of 527 women from
whom schedules were secured were able to both read and write
English. Forty-nine other men and 11 other women were able to
read but not to write the language. A larger number, 421 men and
247 women, had learned to speak English — many of them very
poorly but still sufficiently to make themselves understood at work
or at the store. While only 80 of the men and 107 of the women
were unable to read and write in their native language, 493 of the
men and 509 of the women were illiterate from an English stand-
point.

The immigrant women always have more difficulty in learning
English. In some of the mining towns the feeling that a woman
only needs to know how to look after the housework affects not only
the learning of English by the mothers but is the cause of the girls
being kept out of school at the earliest possible date, sometimes in
violation of the compulsory education law. In a few places some
efforts had been made to break down this prejudice. In one town,
for example, the priest had organized a class for the women, but

'See Report on Educational Needs of the Immigrants in Illinois.

although a number of them came they were said to be so timid that
little progress was made.

Of the 556 men from whom education was secured, 163 had come
to the United States before they were twenty-one years of age and
259 had lived in the same town in Illinois for at least ten years.

If the men are going to learn to speak English they seem to do
it usually during the first five years of their residence in the United
States ; but with the women, whose contacts are much more gradu-
ally acquired, this is not true. Thus 92 per cent of the men
scheduled who had been here five years and less than ten years had
learned to speak English ; while the same per cent of those who had
been here twenty years and over could speak it. In the case of the
women the per cent speaking English was 49 among those who had

ILLITERACY OF MEN AND WOMEN FROM WHOM SCHEDULES WERE SECURED
DISTRIBUTED BY COUNTIES AND BY SEX.

COUNTY

Total

Number
Illiterate
on
Arrival

NUMBER ILLITERATE AT PRESENT

Unable to
speak
English

Unable to
read
English

Unable to
both read
and write
English

MEN

Williamson . .

239
74
128
115

38
10
17
15

54
13
31
37

212
67
86
99

215
71
102
105

Franklin

Sangamon

Bureau

Total

556

135

464

493

WOMEN

Williamson

235
70
113
109

44
15
33
15

140
33
39
70

227
67
106
100

229
57
111
102

Franklin

Sangamon

Bureau

Total

527

107

282

500

509

been here five years and less than ten and 81 per cent among those
*vho had been here twenty years and over. Among both men an*?
women a longer period of residence meant that a larger per cent
learned to read and write English. Thus only 8 per cent of the men
and 2 per cent of the women scheduled who had been here five years

and less than ten years had learned to read and write the language,
while the percentages among those who had been here twenty years
and more were 16 among the men and 14 among the women.

In one of the larger towns of Williamson County in which there
is an unusually high per cent of Americans it seemed as though
surely the educational needs could be met by the community, but
school officials pointed out what seemed to them insuperable
difficulties in offering opportunities for the foreign-born men and
women to learn English. None of the schools were conveniently
located or equipped for an adult school, there was no money to pay
the teachers and it was felt the teachers ought not to be asked to
volunteer their services. Of the 52 men in the town from whom
information was secured only six could read and write English,
seven could read but not write it, while 48 had learned to speak it ;
of the 49 women only 3 could read and write English and 22 had no
speaking knowledge of it whatever. Ten of the men and 10 of the
women were not able to read and write their native language. The
superintendent of schools, who served on the Draft Committee, said
that during the war 10 per cent of the drafted men could not sign
their names.

EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR CHILDREN INADEQUATE

In addition to the almost total lack of educational facilities for
adults, most of the mining towns and camps of the southern counties
do not offer children what we should regard as an American
standard of education. The miners and the miners' wives of Wil-
liamson and Franklin Counties complained again and again of the
poor schools the children attended. The cause was usually a lack of
funds. The schools are largely supported by local taxation; the
miners have little accumulated wealth to tax ; the mines are usually
located outside the school districts in which the miners and their
children live, so the mines are taxed for the much smaller school
population of a rural district. Some of the towns have special
difficulties. For example, in Freeman, a town which is partly in
Franklin and partly in Williamson County, the only school is on the
edge of the settlement on the Franklin County side. This means a
two miles' walk to school for many of the children. The parents
complained that this was too far for the little children to go, par-
ticularly in winter and during muddy weather. The dirt road
becomes almost impossible during some seasons of the year; the

only alternative is what is regarded as a dangerous road around a
mine switch. The Italians also complained that they were particu-
larly apprehensive about the moral safety of the older girls, as the
school was located in the woods and there was not proper super-
vision during recess. But even worse than the long walk,
overcrowded classes await the Williamson County children when
they reach the school. Last year there were three teachers and one
of them had 105 pupils. The school term was seven months. The
children, nearly all foreign born and many of them coming from
non-English speaking homes, needed the most skilled teaching and
a longer school year.

During the long summer months a six weeks' private school is
held in one of the school buildings. The tuition is $3.00 or $4.00,
the rate varying with the age of the children. The summer of 1920
there were usually about forty children in the school, which was
taught by two inexperienced eighth-grade graduates. One of the
teachers complained that "it was impossible for the boys to learn
much, because they entered school late and usually left before they
had learned to read and write to any extent."

In one of the company-owned towns one teacher in a primary
grade had ninety-one pupils. In such towns there were, of course,
no classes for adults and no prospect of any until school conditions
for the children were improved.

The school situation in Bureau County is much better than in
Williamson and Franklin Counties. Mines and valuable farm lands
are usually inside the school districts in which the mining towns are
located. The children stay in school longer. In the township high
school at Spring Valley many of the pupils are from foreign families
and investigators were told of some ten Italians and Lithuanians
who have gone on to college. There were no classes for adults last
year in the county, but there have been some in the past. The
foreign born themselves frequently show considerable impatience
with those who have not learned English, saying they could have
picked it up if they had wanted to. While a large per cent of the
men knew English, the women were as isolated in Bureau as in the
other counties. Forty-five of 109 could speak no English ; only 2 had
learned to read and write it (one of these was a girl who came when
she was eleven years of age but had never been to school in the
United States). One of the 45 who could not speak English was

American born, had returned to Italy when she was eight years of
age and had come back to the United States when she was sixteen.

A mine near a Williamson County Camp.

It is not to be expected that under present conditions in Wil-
liamson and Franklin Counties English will be the language in the
home of the immigrant families. Because the women are almost as
isolated in Sangainon, in spite of a longer residence, this is also true
of that county. In only 27 of the 128 homes in which schedules were
taken in Sangamou County was English the language of the home.
In Bureau County, where the immigrants are older settlers, English
as well as a foreign language is spoken in 44 out of the 115 homes
covered in the investigation.

This means increased difficulty in the teaching of the children,
which there is at present no preparation for meeting.1 Short terms,
overcrowded rooms, poorly enforced truancy laws, lack of recrea-
tional facilities, all make the problem of the education of the miners'
children a serious one. The immigrant parents appreciate this fact ;
the amounts they are spending in proportion to their wealth indi-
cates greater sacrifice for education on their part than in commun-
ities in which the same tax rate provides excellent schools, so that
apparently help must come from other sources.

In its Report on the "Educational Need* of Immigrants in Illi-
nois," the Commission has recommended that (1) communities shall
be required to maintain day or evening classes for persons who are
unable to read, write, and speak English and who are over the age
of compulsory full-time attendance at day school, (2) that all

persons under 21 years of age who are unable to meet the educa-
tional requirements for work permits under the State ChDd-Labor
Law shall be required to attend day or evening classes, (3) that
special work in behalf of the immigrant women shall be under-
taken, (4) that the State should adopt a training program for
teachers of immigrant classes, (5) that it shall undertake to reach
the older men and women with moving pictures, lectures in their
own language, etc., and (6) that both Federal and State aid should
be granted local communities for the education of adult illiterates.
The illiteracy and lack of educational opportunities in these mining
towns and camps makes it imperative that this program be promptly
carried out.

NATURALIZATION

The increased consciousness of our citizenship status which
came with the war extended to the mining communities of Illinois.
The per cent of men interviewed in the course of the investigation
who had become naturalized varies in the different counties. In
Saugamon 63 per cent of these had secured their second papers ; in
Bureau 58 per cent, while in Williamson and Franklin Counties
only 19 per cent had certificates of naturalization. In individual
towns the differences were even greater. In Zeigler, although 60
per cent of the population is said to be forign born, "you can count
on your fingers the number of naturalized voters", according to a
local official. In Herrin local officials estimated that about four-
fifths of the fathers of the foreign-born families were voters but only
20 of the 76 interviewed by the Commission's investigators had
their final papers and only 18 others had declared their intention of
becoming citizens.

This difference is largely determined by the age of the settle-
ment. The men in the northern and central fields have usually lived
there much longer and many of them before 1906, when it was
possible to arrange for naturalization en masse before an election.
In these communities men belonging to the so-called newer immi-
gration from southern and eastern Europe are not only voters but
are frequently office holders in the community.

There are several reasons why a larger per cent of the men in all
these counties were not citizens. Ignorance of naturalization require-
ments was sometimes the explanation. One man who had taken out
his first papers more than seven years ago thought he was entitled

to vote because he had registered for military service. In general,
however, those interviewed were found to be fairly familiar with
the requirements of the law ; many had experienced difficulties in
meeting them.

For example, much difficulty is experienced in securing proper
witnesses. In Williamson County, of 52 petitioners for naturaliza-
tion at the spring term of the Naturalization Court only 17 got
their papers. The judge reported that most of the applications
were refused because of incompetent witnesses or were continued
because the men were still classified as alien enemies. Occasionally
this is due to a misunderstanding of the requirements of the law,
but many of the men have moved about so frequently that it is very
difficult for some of them to get citizens who have known them five
years to act as witnesses. One man whose witnesses "went back on
him'', reported that he "tried it three times before he was finally
naturalized, and had spent $125.00."

The cost of naturalization is also a deterrent. It made some
of the men who did not feel sure of their English hesitate to apply,
although others philosophically remarked that "it cost a lot, but
you have to expect that." Distance from the county seat often
explains the cost in part Thus in Williamson County there were
no convenient trains from several of the towns. From Bush the
men hire an automobile which takes them to Herrin — $7.00 for the
round trip — and they then go by trolley to Marion. It is difficult
to get to the court for naturalization from Cherry, Bureau County,
because there are no convenient trains. Here the estimate was that
it costs a man $30.00 to $40.00, and as many of them know "more if
the case is continued."

In some of the towns evidence was found of a desire to deny
citizenship to those who took or did not take a certain position with
reference to some question on which citizens were themselves much
divided. Thus in one of the southern counties the Naturalization
Examiner1 of the United States Department of Labor believed that
those who quit work during the Autumn of 1919, in defiance of the
injunction granted at the request of the Attorney General, should
not be considered loyal within the meaning of the naturalization
law. He had examined a number of ex-soldiers, who were strikers
and entitled to special consideration under the naturalization law

'The Secretary of Labor reports that this was done on the Examiner's own re-
sponsibility and not under directions from Washington.

because of their military service ; he had them make affidavits to the
effect that they knew they were striking in defiance of the United
States laws and because they regarded their allegiance to the Union
as superior to their allegiance to the United States. These affidavits
were turned in to the judge with the recommendation that their
petitions should be denied. The judge found, on cross examination,
that the men had not understood the affidavits they were signing,
that they struck not because the Union required it but because the
other men, many of whom were already citizens, were striking and
because they saw no other way of improving their condition. The
judge, therefore, granted their petitions if they were in other
respects qualified. In a region such as this, where practically all
the miners were members of the union, an episode of this sort might
have prevented many from becoming citizens and have introduced
new complications in a controversy already difficult.

Some of the men, particularly those who lived in a company-
owned camp, felt that there is little use of their being citizens or
voters. Thus one man who had lived for fourteen years in the same
camp said quite hopelessly, "I never leave the camp, so why should
I have papers (citizenship) ?"

In view of what has already been said about the almost total
lack of educational opportunities for adults in the twenty-six min-
ing towns visited, it seems unnecessary to point out that the
difficulty of acquiring English and of preparing for the examination
in civics has deterred many from trying to become citizens. One
man in Franklin County put it "you must know good English now,"
to become naturalized. In the absence of classes special assistance
must be secured; "a friend," "the priest," "a union official," (one
who was interviewed was taking a correspondence course) had
helped most of them to acquire sufficient English to pass the exam-
ination. In Franklin County the judge spoke of the larger per cent
of those who came up for examination who were able to pass during
the war when classes, since abandoned, were organized for the men
in many of the towns.

Special concern was expressed in Sangamon County about the
women who were widows and who must become citizens in order to
hold their mothers' pensions. Almost a third of the women inter-
viewed in Sangamon County were illiterate on arrival and have not
learned to read and write here. For such women preparation for

the citizenship tests is a very serious undertaking. In Springfield
the court has adopted the custom of requiring that the women begin
the study of English before the pension is granted. If they have no
one to help them learn, but are willing to try, some one is secured
to help them. In the isolated camps and smaller towns it is almost
impossible to secure such assistance.

In the Report on the Educational ATeed« o/ the Immigrant this
problem of the non-English speaking mother has been discussed in
greater detail. It is one which exists in industrial as well as min-
ing towns. Experiments as to methods of teaching and ways of
meeting and breaking down the isolation of the women are greatly
needed.

THE PROFITS OF THE MINER

Before the war the wage scale for the mines was negotiated by
the mine operators and the Union. During the war the Fuel Admin-
istration was an important factor in these negotiations. Since the
Armistice there has been much public discussion, bitterness, and
confusion in connection with rate-fixing, and a long controversy as
to whether agreements made for the period of the War were or were
not still binding, and whether the government control should be
continued. In the discussion of hours and wages there has been
little appreciation on the part of the public of a most important
factor in the problem. Most of the men work on a tonnage basis,
so that, as for all piece work, the saying is "the miner is paid what
he earns." His own skill is, however, not the only factor in his
earnings. In the United States as a whole the annual and the daily
output of coal per underground worker is greater than in any
country in the world, notwithstanding the fact that the working
year is usually shorter here than in other countries.1 Whether the
coal bed is faulty, whether the seam is thin or deep, whether ma-
chinery can be and is used, the general mine equipment, the car
supply, and the accident rate are among the factors that determine
\\ hat the worker can earn. These factors, with the same wage scale,
produce the greatest inequalities in payment from mine to mine and
field to field. They are, however, factors which the miner knows,
and he is able to forecast what his earnings will be if he has the

Labor ReHev, Vol. XI. No. 3 (September, 1920), p. 118. Reprint of
U. S. Bureau of Mines Report of Investigations, Serial No. 2145.

opportunity to work. What he does not know is how many days of
work he will have. This is true in Illinois as in other mining states.

In the year ending July 1, 1919, out of 38 counties in which at
least 100 men were employed in mining there were only 11 counties
in which, out of a possible 308 working days, the average number of
days worked was 200; in only 3 counties was the average as high
as 225.1

The Annual Coal Report of Illinois does not give the wages the
men receive ; no pay-roll study was attempted, and the men in most
cases do not know accurately what their yearly earnings are. The
men usually do know pretty accurately what their highest and
lowest pay checks have been. This question was asked those who
were interviewed in the course of the investigation. In Bureau
Count}', out of 96 men from whom schedules were secured, only 18
said they had ever received as much as $80.00 (payments are
made every two weeks), and not one of them had had as much as
$90.00. For some the maximum pay check was $60.00 and $65.00.
The minimum sometimes ran as low as $5.00, $10.00, and $12.00. In
Bureau County the men who were paid on the day basis were con-
sidered the best paid, while in the richer southern fields exactly the
reverse was true. The range of payment in Franklin and William-
son counties was much higher.

In the southern counties one man reported a check of $156.00
for two weeks' work. He is a shot firer, a Lithuanian, who was 36
years of age when he came to the United States ; has been here ten
years, and has lived eight years in this town. His lowest pay
check was $3.00 in 1919. He reports his yearly earnings as $2,400.
The man has a wife and four children, owns his own home, and has
a cow and chickens. He still hopes to be able to farm.

Some other concrete examples are :

A Russian Pole, was 37 years old when he came to the United
States, and has lived for seven years in the town in which he was
interviewed. His maximum pay check was $92.00 for two weeks'
work in 1919, the lowest $12.00. His wife reports that their bills at
the company store are usually $40.00 to $45.00 and that he often
draws very little in cash. He has four children, and he has saved
enough to buy an automobile.

thirty-eighth Annual Coal Report of Illinois, Table 35. In the four counties
covered In this Investigation the average number of days worked was as follows :
Bureau 206, Franklin 202, Sangamon 225, and Williamson 183.

A Ruthenian, has lived eighteen years in the United States,
eight years in Illinois, and four years in the camp in which he now
lives. His highest check in 1919 was $60.00. He reports that he
earned about $900.00 that year. He has a wife and three children,
the oldest eight years of age. He has one boarder, who pays $7.50 a
week. The wife says they "spend everything they earn for food."
They trade at the Union store when they have money. They can get
credit at the Ruthenian grocery store when work is slack.

A Croatian, was 36 years of age on arrival in the United
States and six years in Illinois. His highest pay check in 1919 was
148.00, and his lowest $8.00. He usually gets from $30.00 to $40.00.
He estimates his annual earnings at $900.00. He has six children ;
the two oldest are employed in the mine on a $3.00 a day rate. His
wife says that they spend about $35.00 every two weeks for food and
that they are always in debt.

A Croatian, was thirty-six years of age on arrival in the United
States and came to the town in which he now lives fourteen years
ago. During 1919 his highest pay check was $80.00 for two weeks'
work. Often his pay check was as low as $10.00 or $15.00. His wife
reports that it costs about $30.00 every two weeks for food. There
are seven children, the oldest 11 years of age. He belongs to a
Croatian benevolent society.

In Sangamon County work was as a whole more regular than
in Williamson or Franklin counties. Still, in the individual mines,
there is much irregularity. One man whose highest pay check was
$145.00 had a total yearly income of $1,776.00. Another who was
36 years of age on arrival, has been twenty years in the United
States and thirteen in Springfield, had received a maximum
pay check of $110.00 and a minimum one of $8.00 in 1919. He
thinks his average has been about $40.00. He has seven children,
the oldest 9 years of age.

This irregularity of work not only means that the yearly in-
come is far below what the rates of pay would lead the public to
expect, but it means that a wise expenditure of what they do
receive is impossible. A budget system cannot be planned on this
uncertain outlook. As one discouraged mother said, ''You put it in
the bank today and have to draw it out next pay day." Alternating
between a large check and a very small one and credit usually means
foolish expenditures when the pay is exceptionally good and depri-

ration when the pay envelope is slim. The accidents which are
almost the common lot of the miner complicate very greatly this
problem of making both ends meet.

THE HAZARDS OF THE MINER

There had been no great mining disasters in Illinois before the
Cherry Fire, when 259 men were killed, and there has been none
since that time. There have been only two mining disasters in the
United States resulting in a greater number of fatalities. Cherry is
to Illinois a warning of the kind of tragedy that may, but we
believe never will, occur again. However, every year there are some
fatal accidents and a very much larger number of non-fatal ones.
Falling slate, rock and coal ; gas, powder and shot explosions ; trol-
ley wires, mine cars and locomotives ; falling down shafts and other
accidents take their yearly toll of men.

The rate of men killed for every 1,000 employed in the mines of
Illinois1 was 2.43 in 1914; 1.80 in 1915 ; 1.69 in 1916 and 2.77 in both
1917 and 1918. Of the 208 fatal accidents in 1919, 116 of the men
were American born and 92 foreign born.2 The non-fatal accidents
are, of course, much more frequent. In the State 138,811 days were
lost during the year ending July 1, 1919, by 2,515 men who were
injured and returned to work.3 In Williamson County alone there
were 323 men during that year who were so seriously injured that
they lost thirty or more days Of work. Altogether 18,967 days of
work were lost by these men in Williamson County.3 In Franklin
County, during the year 1919, one man out of every thirty-two
employed in the mines was injured so that he lost at least thirty
days of work and the time lost through injuries of this magnitude
amounted to 29,784 days.4 The actual loss of time would be shown
to be much greater if the minor injuries which require men to stay
at home a few days or a few weeks were included.

irrhese figures are open to the general criticism which can be made against most
accident figures in the United States. As they do not take into consideration the
number of hours the men are employed the accident exposure rate cannot be
determined.

*Of this number 23 were Italian, 15r were Lithuanian, 12 Austrian. 7 Scotch, 5
German, 5 Russian and the remaining were representatives of eleven other nationali-
ties. Thirty-eighth Annual Coal Report of Illinois, 1919. Table 24, p. 80.

•Ibid., Table 29, p. 86.

*These figures do not include time lost by twenty men in Williamson and two men
In Franklin Counties who had not returned to work at the end of the year.

The Compensation Law has made payment for injuries much
more certain and so has reduced the family suffering which used to
be incident to a miner's accident. Still half-pay means real priva-
tion and even this is not always collected. The Miners' Union main-
tains a legal department, which looks after the men's cases, but still
unfair settlements are sometimes accepted through ignorance or to
avoid the delay of an appeal to the Industrial Board.

THE MIXER'S WIDOW

In case of an injury resulting in death, the law allows the
widow and children four times half the man's annual earnings, pro-
viding this in no case amounts to less than fl,650 or more than
$4,000. Insurance is carried by many of the men, usually little moiv
than enough to defray their funeral expenses, the union pays a
death benefit, and a collection is often taken locally. The large
number whose husbands die of "flu", pneumonia, or other non-
industrial diseases have only the union benefit, the insurance if
there is any and the collection made by friends larger in such cases
than when the death is caused by an industrial accident. When
these resources are exhausted, the widow in southern Illinois must
look abroad for relief. Everyone who has done relief work in
Chicago has encountered these widows of miners who have been
helped with transportation to the city. They come from southern
Illinois, from West Virginia, or Pennsylvania to Chicago because
they cannot possibly live in the community on which, under the
theory of our law, they should be a charge. In the smaller mining
towns or camps only one or two women can support themselves
washing and taking boarders, so these opportunities, wretched at
best, are soon exhausted. In some mining districts an overall or
box factory has been established on the theory that it can utilize for
its labor supply the miners' daughters and the boys who are too
young for the mines, but these come only to a good-sized or older
settlement. In most cases there is only the mine in which employ-
ment of the women, the girls and the boys under sixteen years of
age is prohibited by law.

In theory, we have, as a state, made provisions for the widows
through our Mothers' Pension Law. But this is another example of
a state law dependent entirely upon the local action for its effective-
ness. Both Williamson and Franklin Counties give Mothers' Pen-
sions usually to about forty-five women in amounts varying from

$5.00 to |12.00 a month. What can the mother do under these
circumstances but move to some other county? When she arrives
in Chicago she probably needs help at once. This is usually pro-
vided by her country people for a short time and then she is
directed to the relief agencies. The county agent knowing the law
about non-resident dependents and the principle on which it is
founded — that every county should care for its own poor — urges
her to return, offers to pay her fare back and refuses to help unless
she does return. But she pays no attention because she knows what
the plan he suggests means for her and her children. Helped by
private agencies and friends little better off than herself, she gets
work or the children get work, until she finally acquires residence
and becomes eligible for public relief in Cook County.

In a mining county like Sangamon the situation is much more
favorable. Springfield has, of course, its Charity Organization,
Infant Welfare Society and other private charities, but outside of
Springfield there are no private agencies and public relief is still
inadequate. But the payments are higher than in Williamson and
Franklin Counties. Last year the Mothers' Pensions ranged from
$8.00 to $40.00 a month (only two were $8.00 and these it was said
would soon be discontinued), in Sangamon County. The usual pen-
sion is $25.00, and there are factories where supplementary employ-
ment can usually be found inside the county.

Still as a whole the mining counties demonstrate the suffering
which our theory of local relief often entails. As in education there
is no sound reason that can be urged why a county in which the
accident rate is high, in which much wealth is produced but little
remains in the county, should bear this burden alone. So far as the
state is concerned it is certainly a blind policy to continue to rely
on a method of relief which obviously does not and cannot assure
the widows and children the protection and care the law intends
shall be given them. If work were regular and pay adequate, the
miners could leave enough so that upon their death their wives and
children would not become objects of either public or private
charity. However, so long as relief is still necessary, it should be
available for these women in their homes without the suffering now
entailed in establishing residence in another county.

CONSUMERS' COOPERATION AMONG THE MINERS

The miners of Southern Illinois have been pioneers in the recent
development of the co-operative movement in the United States.
Local co-operative societies were organized with the active
encouragement of the State Federation of Labor about ten years
ago. With the increase in the cost of living during the war the
number of these stores increased. They differ very much in their
history and control. Some of them are managed by Americans and
relatively few of the immigrant miners belong; the meetings are
conducted entirely in English and very little consideration is given
in the purchase of the goods and food stuffs to the customs peculiar
to the various immigrant groups. The leaders in the organization
of other stores have been immigrants who have had some experience
in, or have known of, the co-operative movement at home. In some
of these a single nationality predominates; occasionally only those
from a single province or district belong. For example, in Herrin
the Lombard Society, originally organized as a benefit association
by Italians from Lombardy, conducts a large store which is a com-
bination meat market, grocery and dry goods store. While only
people from Lombardy are members, others may patronize the
store. It has a slaughter house of its own and a large business in
the surrounding country among North Italians especially. This
store forms a center for the older North Italians of the town, but
the younger generation prefers American associates and American
customs, so its existence in this particular form may not be
permanent.

In some towns the local union opens a store, slightly under-
sells its competitors and the profits if any belong to the union.
Agents of the Commission found that the foreign born felt very
little interest in these. As they did not have individual member-
ships, they bought at the union store when they thought the articles
were cheaper. Sometimes, after a store of this sort has been
fostered by a union, it is turned into a co-operative store and indi-
vidual members of the union form the co-operative society.

The question of giving credit is a difficult one for the co-opera-
tive store to meet. The miner frequently needs it because his work
is irregular. The wife who keeps boarders often never gets enough
ahead to pay for the groceries until she is paid by the boarders on
pay day, so she must have credit.

In general it is considered safe for the co-operative store to loan
a member only as much as he owns capital stock and because of his
habit of relying on credit the member often finds that he cannot
trade at the co-operative because he cannot get credit.

While emergencies make credit sometimes necessary, the habit
of relying on credit has been encouraged in the past by the order
system of the company stores. The mine employees are paid every
two weeks, but two weeks' pay is usually held back by the company.
The company permits the men to draw orders which the company
store accepts for any amount which they have earned. This "credit"
at the store is deducted from the men's pay, so that frequently when
pay day comes their wages have already been spent. Sometimes
where this system is not arranged for, the men in an emergency
will discount their orders for cash from a foreman or fellow-worker.

Before prohibition much traffic in these orders was reported,
although the union tried to discourage it; the men drew their orders
and sold them at a discount sometimes of 25 per cent. In order to
get money a man would sometimes purchase with an order some-
thing such as a side of bacon for which they paid as much as $7.35
and then resell it for fo.OO in cash. When pay day comes and the
money has already been drawn, the same process must be continued.

In the camps where there are also other stores, company stores
on the whole are usually the largest and the best in appearance.
Some of the families complained that they were more expensive than
the other stores, but so far as the agents of the Commission could
discover the prices charged by the company and by private stores
on the whole appeared to vary no more than retail prices frequently
do in different stores. Whatever the prices charged there is usually
much less dissatisfaction when the company towrn begins to sell its
houses and permits other stores to come in. When the men must
pay practically all they earn for food at the company store and rent
a company house there is sure to be discontent. The co-operative,
in addition to fostering much better habits of purchasing than did
the company store and .reducing somewhat the cost of living, is of
real educational value to the active members.

TRADE UNIONISM AMONG THE MINERS

Some indication has already been given of the part that the
union — more correctly the United Mine Workers of America — plays
in the life of the miner. Through it they have learned to work

together, not only to secure better wages, hours and protection
against accidents, but also to maintain a hospital for their sick, to
provide legal advice, to mitigate in some degree the hardships of
the widows and orphans and to meet the problems of a rising cost
of living bj- co-operative buying.

At the present time practically all the fields in Illinois are
organized and as the ''check off" system — deduction of dues from
wages — is used, every man is a member of the union. This has not,
of course, always been the case. In some of the towns the immi-
grants were first brought in to break a strike or when one was
anticipated. This resulted in hard feeling and bitterness among
the various groups. Stories are told of how the Italians were first
brought to Spring Valley by a saloon-keeper more than thirty years
ago and of the opposition to their being employed in the mines at
that time. The English speaking miners during the course of an
eight-month strike practically abandoned that field to the Italians
in 1899. There are many who tell how only a few years ago a "scab*'
mine was opened in Franklin County and the foreigners' barracks
were patrolled by sentries and a searchlight on top of the tipple
swept the country round for miles at night.

These incidents do not describe the larger movement of popula-
tion which has come with the development of the mines of Illinois
and indeed of the Middle West. At first the Americans, Germans,
Scandinavians, and the English, Irish, Scotch and Welsh came from
the Pennsylvania mines. In the same way the eastern and southern
Europeans came later as one field after another was opened. They
were in many places the pioneers and while not so quickly identified
with the Americans as the northern and western Europeans, they
have had their part in the development of the trade-union organiza-
tion.

The union has no program which it labels Americanization. It
is, however, in many places almost the only unifying force. None
of the local unions in the counties visited are organized along
racial lines and practically the only places where all nationalities
meet is in the mine and at the union meeting. The union theory
seems to be that some way, somehow all the miners can learn
English if they want to. It has already been shown that most of
them learn to speak it after a fashion, but the vocabulary of many
of those who do is so limited that they cannot take part in the

meetings and they lose much of what is said when a new subject is
under discussion.

The union has urged naturalization. The secretary-treasurer
of District 12 said at the District Convention held in Peoria in
1920, "if the U. M. W. A. is going to remain an American Institu-
tion and contend for American standards and ideals, then every
member in it ought to become an American citizen. Our Govern-
ment is and always will be what the people make it. If our laws
are not just, then they should be changed. There are no better
weapons with which to do this than free schools and the ballot.
The laws of the land give us both. If a man refuses or neglects to
become a citizen and a voter then he has no right to complain about
the laws which govern him." These sentiments all of us would
applaud, but the difficulty in most of these mining towns is that
there are no free schools where the adult may learn English. More-
over, in most of the cities and towns of the state the returns from
local taxation are so small, that the schools are woefully inadequate
for the children, and if they had plenty of school funds, the law does
not authorize its expenditure for adult education. While all this
can be changed by legislation, it is at present an example of the
"vicious circle."

EACIAL FEELING

The regard with which the foreign-born miners are held by the
Americans among whom they live and work differs in different com-
munities. In general, the difference is determined by whether those
of a particular nationality are newcomers or old settlers. If they
are old settlers, they usually mingle freely with the Americans, and
judgments with reference to them are individual — a man is liked
or disliked because of individual traits and not because he is or is
not an Italian, for example. But for many years after their
arrival, the language barrier separates the immigrant groups from
each other and from the American. In many of these mining towns
the separation is intensified by an isolation which results from poor
roads. Isolation usually causes suspicion and distrust, and
in camps in which the frontier life of an earlier period is duplicated,
may under strong feeling result in violence and serious injustice.

In many places it has already been said the mine and the
miners' union are the only meeting-places of the adults, as the
school is the meeting-place of the children. Although a very

large per cent of the immigrants are Catholic, they are separated in
their churches. To a church with an American or Irish priest few
of the non-English speaking will go ; a church having a priest able
to speak the language of one immigrant grpup the others do not
usually attend. Thus a church in Herrin is almost exclusively
Italian; the Poles do not go to the Lithuanian church of Benton;
the Slovenians and Lithuanians have their own separate churches
in Springfield; the Lithuanians, Italians, and Poles, all Roman
Catholic, have their separate churches at Spring Valley; the priest
of the Russian Church in Buckner, ministers almost exclusively to
Russian Carpathians of that neighborhood.

This mutual exclusiveness results from superficial rather than
important differences. It often, however, leads to the conclusion
that differences are an evidence of superiority, so that one group
feels itself greatly superior to another. In some of the Illinois
camps this situation is complicatd by the fact that the American
miners are a rough set, inferior in most ways to the foreign born
whom they contemptuously refer to as "Round Heads," "Hunkies,"
and "Dagoes." An unwillingness to trust the courts when one of
them is an offender leads occasionally to race friction and riots.

The West Frankfort riot that occurred during the past sum-
mer, as the story first appeared in the newspapers of the state,
seemed to indicate the same kind of racial antagonism which
results in struggles over trivial affairs between the colored and
white races. While greatly magnified in the first accounts, there
have been difficulties which prepared the public to believe the
worst.1

The great differences which education, industrial opportunity,
and climate have created between the North and the South Italians
often results in great contempt for the South Italians. In many
towns in Illinois the North Italians, who were the first to come and
have more American contacts, are largely responsible for the
general use of the term "Black Italians" to describe the South

'In Johnston the story Is told of the discharge of a South Italian miner, with
some ill feeling on the part of both the manager and the man. Shortly after a shot
was fired into the manager's house at night which killed his father-n-law and wounded
his wife. The next day the discharged employee, who was believed to be responsible
for the killing, was hung by a mob to the scale house at the railroad station in full
view of a waiting passenger train. This occurred in 1915, but the people still Justify
it as necessary ; and a mob was prepared to take the law into its hands to punish a
murder which grew out of a quarrel over a dog fight last winter.

Near Willisville in 1914 an Italian, while being removed from one town to
another was lynched and shot twenty times, although he was already under arrest and
handcuffed at the time.

Italians. In some districts of South Italy the people have been in
the habit — like Americans in the mountain districts of the South—
of settling their difficulties and grievances without reference to the
courts and the law. There are some representatives of both such
Americans and such Italians in camps where the habits of the
frontier survive.

In some of the towns, although- there is a large South Italian
colony, there have been no outbreaks, and no difficulties in law
enforcement were reported by the authorities. However, in a com-
munity in which Americans regard a lynching as a means of
teaching the foreigners a wholesome respect for law, little can be
expected from the Sicilian. In such towns mob violence has
occurred from time to time in the past. '

SOCIAL LIFE

In the old days some of the mining camps were said to be
nortorious for drinking, gambling, and general disorder. In spite
of bootlegging, conditions are reported to be much improved since
prohibition went into effect; but nothing has as yet been provided
in the way of recreation or diversion for the men, women, or
children in many of these camps.

The foreign benevolent associations furnish some social life.
Although organized primarily for burial insurance, during a year
they often have a social meeting, a lecture, a play, or a dance.
Among the Slavs and Lithuanians these societies are usually
branches of national organizations, and through them the members
are kept in touch with settlements in other cities and states and
with what is happening at home. Some of these own their own
buildings. In West Frankfort, for example, three Lithuanian
societies have collected $1,300 and intend to buy or to build their
own club house.

In some of the towns the immigrants have joined American
fraternal organizations; but, because of language difficulties, they
usually take very little part in the social activities of these organi-
zations. In the smaller towns and camps, according to the women,
life is dull and monotonous almost beyond endurance.

MOVEMENT OF THE WORKERS OUT OF THE COAL FIELDS

There is a theory that much of our immigration during the ten
years before the war was seasonal in character; that the Italians

particularly were frequently birds of passage, who came not to
settle here but to work for a short time and then to return with
such savings as they could accumulate by practicing the greatest
personal self-denial. This practice has been denounced as undesir-
able from an American standpoint. It has also been explained as
inevitable and desirable if exploitation is prevented, on the theory
that the international labor market should be drawn upon not only
by the United States but by all nations for seasonal and for
temporary employment.

In the Illinois coal fields there has been a much smaller move-
ment of this sort than might be expected. The foreign-born miners,
although there is a considerable movement from one town to
another, seem to have adopted the United States as their home.

Of the 556 men from whom schedules were secured, 246 had
come directly to Illinois and have since lived continuously in the
state — 128 of them in the same city or town. The next largest
group, 140, had come via Pennsylvania ; 47 via Missouri ; and the
others in smaller numbers from the metal mines of Michigan, from
the coal fields of Alabama and Ohio, and from 25 other states.

According to the reports of the United States Commissioner of
Immigration during the decade from 11)10 to 1019 there were only
o,.'J01 alien miners from Illinois in the outgoing stream. During
each of the first four years of the decade the number leaving was
about 500 ; in 1914 it increased to 739, probably because of return-
ing reservists. In 1919 there were 158 who went back. In the
course of the investigation it was found that a considerable number
especially of the Italians had been to the old home once and some
twice for a visit, but they regarded the United States and Illinois
as their real home. In Williamson and Franklin counties 16 per
cent of the men interviewed had been back. Thirty-two per cent of
the South Italians and 20 per cent of the North Italians, but only
5 per cent of the Poles and Lithuanians had returned for a visit.

From the northern coal fields there has been a steady departure
as one after another the richer mines of the central and southern
part of the state and industrial towns have offered larger returns
to the worker. Cherry, in Bureau County, has decreased in popula-
tion ever since the fire, until now the town, originally built to
house 500 workers in the mines has only :U>2 miners. Whole rows
of houses are boarded up, and the main street is grass grown. In

other parts of Hnrran County nirn have been atlradr.l to factory
work by (lie higher wages. Although many who own their own

liMlnr .in- .Irl.-i | r,| ||.,|ll IcMVIlr.' by lli.ll l.irl. Ot llCI'S llRVO ;ili:lll

doned their property in order to go. In Spring Valley -00 children

are H'|M.rl.-.| t<) have loft the Schools ItlHt \\ inln hecaUHC their

parents were moving to industrial centers — Detroit, Kockford, and
apparently attracting most of them.

In Sangamon County, although there waH a shortage of labor
in th<' mi IICH last Nnmmcr, men were leaving for factory jolw. On
the whole, however, there wan mud to be comparatively little shift-
ing in ili.ii Mction.

Diminishing returns from their labor in one Held or better
wagcH in the iiHliiMlrial IOWIIH IH the most freipient reanon why the
minei-H leave one town or camp for another or for the city. The
regularity of factory work in recent years made the yearly factory
wage Hcale higher than the minci-H*. Irregularity of employment in
the mines IUIH been one of the greatest drawbacks to this work.

But in addition to economic reasons many of the miners leave
because they know their children will have better schools and
opportunities of all sorts in a city than in a mining camp and when
they are ready to go to work there will be a wider choice of employ-
ment open to them.

There is a spying ''once a miner, always a miner,'' and it is cer-
tainly true that there is real attachment to the work in spite of the
hazards, the fact that, it means for most of them underground work,
and usually fewer opportunities for themselves and their children.
Some of those who leave return because they prefer the relative
independence which the miner enjoys in his work. During the
winter of 1910-liO some returned because of the high city rents or
their inability to HIM I any place in which to live in the industrial
centers.

CONCLUSION

It would be a mistake if the impression of helplessness has
been given JIM the characteristic of the immigrant miners in Illinois.
Quite the reverse is the case. Mining apparently, more than indns
trial employment, develops independence of thought and action and
individual initiative. In general these are the lialtits of the frontier
which have so influenced the development of American life. While

we know (lie value lo tlu- individual of pioneering, we also know its
costliness. It is peculiarly hard on the women and children, and
too frequently the children of vigorous pioneering stock are
physically exhausted before they begin life. The mining towns in
the same sections and in diH'erent sections of the stale differ from
each other. In some the problems are no more serious than in the
average industrial community. In a town which has a thousand
people, no doctor, and only one telephone and that not available all
the time, when houses are miserable makeshifts for homes, when
the water supply is had and inadequate, when the schools are OUT
crowded and the term short, when there is no organi/.ed recreation,
life offers little to the miners ami even less to their wives and their
children. So far as the immediate outlook is concerned, this is not
a temporary but a permanent condition. That the children do not
want to enter the mines when they grow up, that the boys from
these communities who saw life with the army will want at least
to try for something better is to be expected. At this time.
however, when there is a world shortage of coal, the Illinois
mines must be worked, and some way should be found of
protecting health, and of supplying better schools, more comfortable
homes, and richer recreational opportunities in the mining com-
munities of the state. The possible savings which might be made it
the coal were converted into power at the mouth of the mine and
by-products were adopted for commercial purposes are now being
discussed by engineers. The social advantages of such a plan should
not be ignored. It would bring to these districts diversity of em-
ployment and, in a large measure, make the isolated camp a thing
of the past.

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